The best spicy (non cedar) sandalwood I've ever tried. Initial application gave me a huge hit of pure sandalwood oil so I had to compare it to the samples I have. Thanks to a couple very kind basenoters I actually have a decent amount of pure oils to compare against now. The sandalwood note is very close to the smell of Mysore - to my nose. This sandalwood note is not alone however.

Very interested to hear from the oud experts! Let me state upfront I am not one of those.

I only own a handful so my top 3 will not be very informative, but I have tested dozens and settled on these usual suspects that reportedly contain the synthetic interpretation of oud but no actual oud. There's no shame in synthetic interpretations IMO, these each benefit from a rich/oily/woody/leathery accent that is attributed to oud.

This stuff is just beautiful. The only reason it's getting a 9/10 from me is because I think it's a feminine fragrance. Perfectly blending, wearing extremely high quality on the skin, I have no complaints about how this smells. The other thing to make clear though is: This isn't a sandalwood fragrance. I'm very happy to have tried it but this is completely about the florals and vanilla

Dries Van Noten was VERY hard for me to review. At times I thought it smelled like an absolute scrubber and ever toyed with the idea initially of rating it as Scrubber/10. But other times I smelled it and found it pleasant and even, nice, smelling. To be clear: This doesn't smell like a sandalwood fragrance to me. It's much more about Vanilla mixed with nutmeg and florals. The overall